Families and Children (Chapter 9)

Parents of a typical family with two children can expect to spend how much to raise each child up to age 17

$160,000 -$370,000

When did the term parenting become popular?

1970s

On average, American families have how many children?

2

What percentage of children live with a cohabiting parent at some point in their lives?

40

What percentage of all pregnancies are identified as "unintended"?

50 percent

Although fewer parents are married now than in the past, why are many children involved with more than two parents?

A growing number of families include stepparents and siblings from parents' previous relationships.

How have adoption patterns in the United States shifted over the past half-century?

Adoption has become less common, but it is more open and acceptable

There is reason to suspect that parents' insecurity has increased in the last few decades for which of the following reasons?

Because parents have fewer children, their investment in each one has grown.

What is one reason women with lower education levels tend to have more children?

Childrearing threatens higher incomes and career status.

Why might Jane, a new mother, not put her infant son on his back to sleep, despite abundant evidence that infants who do not sleep on their backs are at risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome?

Jane lacks the education.

Why are first-generation Latino immigrants more likely to have children than families who immigrated in earlier generations?

Latin American culture places high value on having children.

In the past few years, American opinion of abortions has moved in which general direction?

More people consider themselves "pro-life."

From the 1960s to the 1990s—a period when women's employment rates grew rapidly—the time mothers spent with their children actually did increase. How was that possible?

Mothers engaged in less of other things, like sleeping and leisure.

Henry and Lauren, who are infertile, have decided to call themselves "child-free" rather than "childless," indicating what?

Some people have embraced the concept as a lifestyle label.

The relatively high fertility rate among Latinos partly explains the growth of their population in the country as a whole. What is one of the reasons for this pattern?

The Latino population includes many young, healthy adults

What is one reason contemporary mothers might be unlikely to give their children up for adoption?

The stigma associated with unmarried motherhood has decreased.

Within the broader growing trend of single parenthood, what is one way people become single parents?

Young adults, either alone or with a partner, are not ready to marry.

In part because of the legal, technological, or financial obstacles they must overcome to have children, same-sex couples have been shown to

be unusually committed to parenting.

The greatest expenses in raising children tend to come from

child care and education

The decline in international adoptions was part of a worldwide trend in which the act was

closely scrutinized for ethical and legal violations.

Children are most likely to be adopted through which method?

foster care system

Raising children is often expected to

give emotional and symbolic rewards

If a country has a fertility rate of more than 2.1 or so, the population will usually

grow

In 2010 the number of childless adults aged 25 to 40 reached 48 percent, indicating what?

growing numbers of childless adults

paul spends nearly every Saturday with his two children. This is very different from his parents, who rarely spent time with Paul and his four siblings. This shift reflects which goal of modern parents?

investing more in fewer children

Until the 1960s, the male provider ideal was the dominant conception of what a father should be. The current dominant American ideal is the

involved father

The high frequency of unintended births, especially among women or couples with less education or fewer economic resources, partly results from

lack of access to good-quality medical care.

A very small fraction of children (less than 1 percent)

live in the care of same-sex couples.

Which group of women is most likely to have an abortion?

low-income women

The price one pays for choosing the less lucrative available option is known as

opportunity cost

When Jose was looking for a job, his father Jesus was able to get him an interview at a friend's company. Which category of skill or resource was Jesus providing to Jose?

social networks

When it comes to children's success in three major dimensions—being happy and well adjusted, doing well in school, and staying out of serious trouble—which parental stance has proven beneficial?

supportiveness

Forty-one percent of all children born in the United States are born to parents who aren't married, up from 28 percent in 1990. This trend is closely tied to

the decline of marriage.